Kojima talks about the frontier spirit of game development

It’s been almost a year since Kojima founded his new company, the now independent Kojima Productions. This past week, Kojima has shared some personal thoughts where he compares to sometimes lonely and difficult road of game development to space travel. This is also something that is reflected in the studio’s mascot, Ludens, a character with ‘cutting-edge equipment’ and a ‘frontier spirit’.

“In 1969 humanity had sent man to the moon. What drove manned lunar exploration possible that everyone dreamed of? Is it the talented astronauts from all over the world? Or technology? The money? The reckless adventurers? Or the Cold War? Yes. But the most important thing was the solid belief to believe in we are the ones to bring humanity to the moon. So’s game creation.”

Kojima has said before that to him creation is about making the impossible possible, and during his 2009 GDC keynote he said: “90 percent of what is considered impossible is in fact possible. The other 10 percent will become possible with the passage of time and technology. So in other words, if you look in the future, think nothing is impossible.” This new quote seems to reflect the same kind of mindset.

When Kojima abandoned his studies in order to pursue game development, his friends and family begged him to reconsider, believing he was making a big mistake. But Kojima was able to see the potential of the medium, and followed his dreams.

“In early 60’s, people may think you’re crazy if you tell your family that you are devoting your life to send the man to the moon. The era that moon travel was just another absurd story, no one understood its necessity. There’s big gap in between. To prove your justice you must succeed. Same as long lonely game creation.”

Kojima will attend the Game Awards next week to accept the Industry Icon Award. His new game Death Stranding is rumored to make an appearance at the PlayStation Experience later that week.

Update December 10: At the PlayStation Experience 2016 it was revealed Kojima will be working together with Guerrilla Games, using their Decima engine for his new game. He continued the space travel allegory:

“The space development competition has been stagnated after the Cold War. Due to the steep rise in price of space development cost, the investment for the earth has been strengthened and they gave up on the space shuttle program. Meanwhile I who wants to proceed myself to the moon, met the guerrilla whose plan was to go to the mars. We decided to make the rocket by reforming their engine. And by doing so it enables us to go to the mars but even to the jupiter.”